Pop-science needs a bigger audience

It is not very difficult to find the pop-science bookshelf in a library. Just look for the shelf that is most colored, because the domestic pop-science books are mostly written for children and teenagers.

That is also borne out by publishing sector data. According to China Science Popping Report 2021, the first report on pop-science books published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2020 alone China had published 98.53 million pop-science books plus 258 kinds of pop-science journals. However, most of these were for school students; the market and supply for adults is rather small in size.

That is a major problem for the flourishing pop-science sector. For too long, pop-science has been seen as a tool to better teach science to schoolchildren and teenagers, but not adults. On at least three major domestic book-selling websites, if one searches for "pop-science", one is automatically prompted with post-fix phrases such as "for teenagers", "for 0-6 years old", "for children".

It is absolutely necessary to teach pop-science to children, who are the future of the nation and whose sense of science has a bearing on the nation's scientific development. However, that should not be the whole thing and the adults' need to study science should not be neglected.

There are so many scientific developments adults will need to need to keep abreast of, especially during a pandemic. How do masks protect one from the virus? What other measures must one take to stay healthy? Such questions are not juvenile when one reads of anti-mask movements in the United States. Besides, there are groups that still insist that the Earth is flat.

To avoid such follies in China, it is necessary to create interest in pop-science among every age group, from the grassroots level up. And that's mutually beneficial, too, as the more adults develop or sharpen their scientific temper, the more attention they can pay to their children's knowledge too.

Contact the writer at zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn